Actions for selected content:

Send content to

To send content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about sending content to .

To send content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services
Please confirm that you accept the terms of use.

The Goal-Corrected Partnership Adolescent Coding System (GPACS) has shown promise in assessing a secure as well as three atypical patterns of parent–adolescent interaction during a conflict discussion. The current study of 186 economically disadvantaged families examines the degree to which four GPACS patterns: secure/collaborative, hostile/punitive, role confused, and disoriented, prospectively predict adolescents’ social competence and maladaptive behavior (internalizing, externalizing, and risk behaviors) at age 15 years after controlling for these social behaviors at age 13 years and contemporaneous GPACS scores. Adolescents from secure/collaborative dyads at age 13 were more likely to have a secure state of mind in the Adult Attachment Interview at age 15 and showed higher levels of teachers’ ratings of empathy and lower levels of teachers’ ratings of externalizing behaviors at age 15 years. Adolescents in disoriented dyads showed higher levels of teacher-rated internalizing problems, while male adolescents in role confused dyads reported higher levels of involvement in risk behaviors, including unprotected sexual activity and substance use problems.

Adolescents' trajectories of impulsive and hostile behaviors provide a dynamic index of risk for the emergence of Cluster B (antisocial and borderline) personality disorders in early adulthood. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that preoccupied states of mind in the Adult Attachment Interview would increase both the level and rate of growth in adolescents' trajectories of aggressive and sexual risk-taking behaviors measured at ages 13, 15, and 17. Overall, preoccupied states of mind predicted higher levels of sexual risk taking and aggressive behaviors across all three assessments as well as higher rates of growth in sexual-risk taking and caregiver-reported aggression over time. In addition, preoccupied females showed slower rates of decline in self-reported hostile emotions than did preoccupied males. The effects of gender as a moderator of the relations between preoccupied status and risk trajectories for personality disorders are discussed.

This paper uses a functionalist view of emotion to consider family factors that create risk for depressive symptoms in adolescents. Two adolescent siblings and their mothers were assessed for emotion regulation during autonomy-related communication tasks, whereas their mother's attachment- and intimacy-related functioning was assessed through interview and self-report. The results indicate that older teens' failure to establish autonomous stances during communication and their mothers' dissatisfaction with intimate relationships increase risk for teenagers reporting depressive symptoms. Further, mothers' preoccupation attachment-related issues was found to be associated with less autonomous communication from older teenagers. Implications of these findings and future directions for investigating the family factors associated with adolescent depression are discussed.

This study examines the intergenerational effects of caregivers' unresolved loss and abuse on children's behavior problems from middle childhood to early adolescence in an economically disadvantaged sample. One hundred twenty-four caregivers completed the Adult Attachment Interbiew (AAI) and a lifetime trauma interview during the age 13 wave of the study. Child behavior problems were assessed at four time points (ages 6, 8, 10, and 13) with teacher-reported Child Behavior Checklist total problem scales. The children of insecure caregivers with unresolved loss showed a consistent pattern of increased behavior problems from middle childhood to early adolescence. Caregivers' AAI status accounted for more variance in child behavior problems than did an alternative model of caregiver psychopathology (depression and dissociation). The results extend the literature on the effects of caregiver unresolved states of mind beyond infancy to older children and adolescents.

This article uses a developmental pathway model to consider the role of attachment processes in adolescents' reports of depressive symptoms. Teen attachments were assessed with both interview and observational methods. Assessments of teens' strategies in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) indicated that insecure and preoccupied strategies were associated with increased reports of depressive symptoms. Observations of mother-teen problem-solving revealed that depressed teens engaged in interactions characterized by high levels of maternal dominance and dysfunctional anger. Maternal reports of teens' negative life events contributed additional variance to a regression model for depressive symptoms. Gender differences further specified pathways to depressive symptoms. Females reported more depressive symptoms, while depressed males engaged in problem-solving interactions characterized by high levels of dysfunctional anger. Competency-based treatments of depressive symptoms designed to improve parent-teen communication and meta-monitoring skills are discussed.

Summary

Three objectives guided the writing of this chapter. The first was to provide a sample of differences among emotion theories that need to be considered in research on emotion regulation. The second was to delineate a broad conceptual framework for understanding and investigating emotion-regulatory mechanisms and processes. The third was to show how the contributions to this volume relate to our proposed theoretical framework.

Conceptions of emotion, emotions system functioning, and emotion regulation

There are numerous definitions and theories of emotion. Some of the differences among them have important implications for the way that the functions of emotions are conceived and investigated. The same holds for the concept of emotion regulation; that is, a clear statement of one's view of the nature and functions of emotions should guide theories of and research on emotion regulation.

Definitions of emotions

Emotion has been defined as an interrelated set of processes at the neural, expressive, and conscious-experiential levels (Izard, 1971; Izard & Tomkins, 1966). The neural aspect involves central structures (e.g., thalamoamygdala pathway), hormones, and neurotransmitters; expression includes facial, vocal, postural, and gestural activities; and the conscious-experiential aspect consists of emotion-feeling states. Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activities are seen as secondary expressive behaviors that follow from somatic expression (striated-muscle activity) and emotion feeling. We view these component processes as constituting an emotion system. The several discrete emotion systems

Recommend this

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.